OUR VIEW: Common Core goals worthy; details need some work

On a neighborhood street corner or in a formally crafted opinion poll, few argue that they are satisfied with the quality of U.S. education.

How to improve public education and on what level of government these improvements should come continue to be matters of intense debate around the nation.

The latest focus of this debate is Common Core or Common Core State Standards. The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers are leading this standards effort.

In all, 46 states, including Tennessee, and the District of Columbia are participating in Common Core, and its goals, according to supporters, are to create national standards for language arts and math instruction, to help students develop higher-order or critical-thinking stills and to prepare students to compete in a global economy.

While few can argue with these broad goals, a lower-order maxim quickly comes to mind: "The devil is in the details."

Some critics contend that Common Core is a federal takeover of education that should remain under the control of local communities.

Other critics equate common standards with common curriculum and argue that one approach to teaching could never be effective with the diverse populations that public schools serve.

The Mufreesboro City Council's action last week to approve, in principle, a $5.2 million allocation for a technology upgrade in city schools apparently will require some level of repetition across the country as many jurisdictions do not have up-to-date computers, adequate Internet connections or either. Online assessments for Common Core are to begin in 2014.

Unfortunately, as in often the case, debate about Common Core has become an effort to push political agendas, from the right and left, peripherally related to education standards.

Even the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, which recently backed Common Core, dealt more in its endorsement with the need for good education to prevent crime than the specifics of Common Core itself.

What is certain is that the "industrial model" of education has not been effective in decades, if it ever was. Students on assembly lines of instruction cannot be pummeled with facts to emerge at the shipping department with skills necessary to compete in an information, rather than an industrial, economy and to be ready for the challenges of a global economy.

Common Core cannot be a cure-all for decades of inattention to preparing students for actual thinking rather than merely collecting and repeating facts of interest.

Realization of Common Core goals are going to take a lot of work and a lot of money, apparently, but the goals are worthy of support.

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OUR VIEW: Common Core goals worthy; details need some work

How to improve public education and on what level of government these improvements should come continue to be matters of intense debate around the nation.